Transparent Abyss
by Ananke
Summary: Voyager is home. There are still ghosts attached to the machine.


Disclaimer: ST: VOY and all related characters owned by Paramount Studios. No  
copyright infringement intended.  
---  
He had first come to her in autumn, on the quad, touching her hand with cool  
fingers, calling her  
'Admiral' with only the barest hint of derision. Well enough, she never thought  
it without a great deal of  
derision.  
  
Later, she recalled the nuances of the day, the sparsity of friends, the chill  
of the breeze. Thinking back, it   
all seemed strange...the young, painfully drive smile, the strong, squared  
shoulders clad in the old Starfleet  
uniform. Thinking back, it didn't seem an odd tip of the hat to memory. It  
seemed rotted memory.  
  
His voice, at the time, had been warm, and hopeful, and had held no inflection  
at the same time. Though  
she had only heard it days before, it had seemed a tongue unvoiced for years.  
  
Every week they spoke, awkwardly. It seemed a waste, face to face  
communication. He lost ground and she  
lost audacity. Via subspace, with naught but audio, they said a great deal. He  
promised her a yellow rose,  
for friendship. Implied a great deal more. It was erotic, heady, the absence of  
expression, the lack of  
disappointment. She hadn't yet found the time to worry over the more  
terrestrial aspects. Eventual physical  
reunion. The downfall.  
  
On that day, however, the headiness had been absent, the camaraderie of  
previous conversations. He  
seemed alien, a different person He had stopped her on the quad, they had  
spoken, awkwardly. She had  
asked gingerly of his mission, his posting, and he had batted away the  
questions with odd panic. They had  
taken their leave, his lips pressing against her temple, cool breath on hot  
skin. He had smiled wanly,  
walked away, and she had continued on to work, and with dusk left via  
transporter in lieu of her typical  
walk. Shadows. Alone on a stretch of civilized hell. She had never overtly  
enjoyed the mythos of the big city  
danger...her horrors and haunts were more subtle, more entrenched in the gothic  
past. Big city streets at  
night caused her no fear. Usually.  
  
Midnight had come, and she had awoken in a tangle of soaked linen, trembling.  
He lay beside her, and she  
had briefly thought him dead. That was how he appeared, at least, with an arm  
sprawled across his eyes  
and another across her breasts, an arm still clad in the ridiculously outdated  
uniform. He'd emanated  
coldness, and she had shied away, stirring him. He had eyed her for a moment,  
as if thinking, then stood,  
holding out a hand. A rose. Black. She'd jerked away, turning, calling for  
lights, and turned back, robe  
gripped to her chest modestly.  
  
He had been gone.  
  
She had not slept again.  
  
Hours later, with dawn, the scheduled comm signal had come through. From  
several systems away, he'd  
assured her he'd slept well, no dreams, space did that to him. He'd told her  
he'd order a rose or two, to  
expect them at her command suite. Yellow, he said. For friendship. She needn't  
be embarrassed for  
meaning.   
  
Perhaps her silence had said a great deal. He'd asked if white would be  
better.  
  
Spiritual love. Purity. Emphasis on worth.  
  
She had told him that black was the hue of death.  
  
He'd laughed, and told her that she was becoming as pessimistic as he had been  
on Voyager. She hit the  
visual button for just a second, allowing him a look. She'd known that she  
looked like hell. He had looked  
gorgeous, hale, hardy in his new uniform, resplendent with new pips. Smile  
faltering, he had apologized.  
He'd been wearing it for nearly two days...deep space grub work...and needed to  
change. Somehow, she'd  
managed to chuckle tiredly, and assured him that she had seen him in worse. He  
hadn't seemed to get the  
emphasis, or had developed one hell of a poker face.  
  
She'd turned visual off, and told him not to contact her for a few weeks. She  
needed space, before she went  
stir-crazy, stuck on Earth. He'd agreed, tones faintly concerned, mostly  
injured. He did injury well.  
  
They had spoken no more, and she had dressed for work, indulging in a full  
bath, scrubbing her skin raw.  
Sweat. She hadn't done it so much in years.   
  
He had approached her at lunch. She had taken to the habit of eating beside the  
bay, sipping coffee and  
watching the falling leaves. She'd soon lost herself in the breezes, content  
with the background. Ensigns.  
Cadets. Children, dogs. Earth.   
  
She'd spilled the coffee when he touched her shoulder, slipping onto the bench  
beside her. He'd smiled, and  
told her she was getting edgy with age. His voice had been cool. His hands  
freezing. Her gaze had taken  
him in, fully, feigning bravado. His eyes had chilled. He'd worn one pip, and  
gold-crested shoulders.  
Intellectually, she had known that it was an impossibility. Pranks aside, he  
simply couldn't be there, short  
of some new transportation technology, or Q.  
  
Q.  
  
She had told him that he was a miserable, fucked up bastard.  
  
He'd seemed to believe her, and walked away silently, Harry Kim face a study in  
disappointment. Injury.  
He did injury so very damned well.  
  
Some time later, Tom Paris had approached, hedged concern. She had passed  
lunch. It was dusk. People  
were worried. She was Making A Spectacle. She'd laughed at the irony, and took  
her messenger's arm,  
asking him if he'd seen anything odd.   
  
Maybe.  
  
The Paris eyes had flickered, he didn't like risking opinion. Too many people  
thought him a fool even  
before his remarks. Afterward was worse. She urged him to continue.  
  
Harry had come by the house. Her former pilot had been dozing, B'Elanna was on  
Qo'NoS. Miral had  
woken him up screaming. That wasn't odd, she was a lunger. But she never cried  
with Harry. Never, so  
needless to say, Tom had been more than a little disconcerted to wake to her  
screaming. Logic had told him  
that any stranger would've triggered the alarm, they had only the best  
protection for Miral. No alarms had  
triggered, sensors had recognized the guest. He'd hurried up, confused. Harry  
was the only one who ever  
dropped in unexpectedly, and Miral never screamed at Harry, and Harry was in  
deep space. But there he  
had stood, hadn't even woken the Daddy up upon entrance, just stood there by  
the crib, holding her as if  
she were...as if he didn't know how. Like he was relearning touch. He had held  
her delicate head at odd  
angles. Her arms were thrashing. She had been turning red with upset.  
  
Tom had been scared witless. He'd grabbed her, first instinct, and turned to  
yell at his retreating friend,  
just what was it with him?   
  
By the time he'd gotten a grip on his wailing daughter and turned, Harry Kim  
had been gone.  
  
Miral hadn't slept again, and eventually Admiral Paris had called, asked him to  
come get her.   
  
She had told him about the midnight visit, the lunch. He, in turn, had told  
her that it hadn't been Q. It had  
been Harry, but not their Harry, not the...he told her he might be crazy, but  
he'd been thinking a lot about  
the other Harry lately. The dead one, not the one who had saved Naomi Wildman.  
He said it was that  
Harry, he didn't believe in ghosts, but he just knew it.   
  
Regretting the slouch in his shoulders, she'd told him that he was ridiculous.  
She didn't believe in ghosts  
anymore either, and besides, after so many years, what self-respecting spirit  
would come back to terrorize  
the two people who had cared for him most?  
  
Her voice had caught and his hands clenched on hers, eyes understanding, and  
pitying. He'd turned back  
away, giving dignity, told her again, forcefully, that he sensed something odd,  
that it wasn't their Harry. He  
didn't play sick jokes like that. Even Q didn't.   
  
He had just known it.  
  
Thinking back, so had she.  
  
Paris had walked her home, and followed her in, the baby draped limply over a  
shoulder, finally worn  
down. So tired, so precious. Briefly, her heart had hardened, and whoever it  
was, whatever it was, she had  
cursed the cruelty. Whatever could such a monster want with an innocent like  
Miral?  
  
Tom had pointed out the roses on the table. Yellow. Two bunches, one tagged as  
a deep space send-off. The  
other was cardless. To dispel the tension, she'd mentioned that yellow  
signified friendship. He had picked  
up the cardless bunch and recycled them. Turning back to face her at the  
doorway, he'd only remarked that  
yellow also signified jealousy.  
  
She had been, still was, flabbergasted, amused, displeased. Did Paris think  
this...this other  
Harry...resented their Harry? For what? Surviving? The one they had lost was  
Starfleet as well. He had  
known the risk. She would have died to save him...hell, the other Janeway  
had...but there had been no way  
to predict his end, or stop it. A deranged spirit? She thought the matter  
absurd.  
  
Starfleet didn't turn out deranged spirits. They simply didn't. Rubbing her  
neck tiredly, Janeway stared into  
her coffee mug, sighing as the doorway chime sounded. "Come in."  
  
"Chakotay." Not wholly unexpected, Paris would've blurted the whole mess to his  
wife, and Torres would  
have promptly told her old friend. Glancing up, she took in his surprise at the  
swift greeting, his longer,  
shaggy hair, the almost polished tone of flesh that bespoke of time out in the  
sun, on archaeological digs.  
"Am I insane?"  
  
He smiled, pulling up the chair opposite. "Only if Paris is too."  
  
"We always said he was that close..." She snapped her fingers teasingly, then  
sobered. "I don't know. I've  
seen all manner of supernatural phenomena during my career, I've felt them,  
touched them...I've come  
closer to death and what lies beyond than most people ever do. But I...I  
suppose the small, stubborn  
scientist in me still refutes spirituality at every turn. At least in us poor  
humans. We weren't meant for  
immortality. We've barely figured out morality."  
  
"Harry? Are you regretting the decision your duplicate made all those years  
ago, Kathryn?"  
  
"Oh." She stood to refill the coffee supply, hip resting against the counter,  
brows furrowed. "I can barely  
comprehend the decisions *I* made, Chakotay, I can't hold myself responsible  
for those made by other  
versions. On the surface, I suppose she made the right decision, and I by  
accepting it. Had we not taken he  
and Naomi in, they would have been lost to both ships. I couldn't see how it  
would harm...he had the same  
memories, the same life...it would be difficult, yes, for him to step into a  
life that both was and wasn't his,  
and difficult for Sam to deal with the loss of a child and a living one...but  
we made it work. Or so I thought.  
I never...grieved...for Harry, because he was always there, living. No  
body...easily, no memory. Most of us  
managed to neatly forget. And the Harry that died didn't deserve that, God  
knows, if there is such a thing  
as purgatory, I suppose we put him in it. But why now? All those years on  
Voyager, and now, with her  
gone, he appears?"  
  
"Exactly." Chakotay leaned forward, touching her hands. "On Voyager, he felt  
comfortable, safe. He could  
watch without fear of losing us. Here, now that Voyager is gone, he has no  
place. He's being pushed away,  
and doesn't like the feeling. He wants to stay."  
  
"I can't help him do that...I..." She gripped the warm hands, staring beyond  
her former first officer into the  
sunset. "I had no idea it was possible to love that deeply. Poor Harry..."  
  
"Or poor Kathryn?"  
  
"Both of us." She sipped her coffee absently.  
  
"You were intimate on Voyager, before..."  
  
"He died? Yes, Chakotay, he did, and we were...we might have been. It was just  
the barest of beginnings,  
our relationship." Janeway rubbed her forehead. "Then he died. *Her* Ensign Kim  
joined us. Of course he  
carried the same memories, but he didn't seem to care."  
  
"Until recently?"  
  
"We've...talked. I'm not even certain what it is, Chakotay. But...Harry's a  
friend."  
  
"Friend enough to give the other Ensign Kim reason to want to stick around."  
  
"A jealous ghost? Jealous of himself? That's pretty damn odd on any level."  
  
"Kathryn." The Indian considered, rubbing his forehead thoughtfully. "You've  
been through depressions.  
We all knew about them, even if you tried to hide it. Think back to  
those...what did you feel when you  
looked at yourself in the mirror?"  
  
"I don't see the relevance."  
  
"Your spirit was aching, wasn't it? You felt small, and weak, and broken. Your  
image in the mirror was  
anything but...you never lost physical strength and beauty. Didn't a part of  
that aching spirit come to loath  
looking at that strong body in the mirror?"  
  
"This is absurd."  
  
"Maybe. Or maybe we just haven't been enlightened enough to understand it. I  
can't tell you what this  
visitor is, if its that Harry, what he wants...but I suspect that unless you  
and Paris quit pushing him away  
and ask, you'll never know either."  
  
"Or maybe Paris and I are both crazy. Or delusory. He was Harry's best friend,  
of course he feels some  
small amount of guilt."  
  
"And you both began experiencing the same delusion at the same time?"  
  
"Well, when we first arrived home, after your untimely resignation and Tuvok's  
return to Vulcan, as third  
officer he helped me put together the manifests...the dead. I remember...we  
argued over what to put in  
Harry's case. It was the most ridiculous argument I've ever had with any  
crewman. I recommended that the  
file remain classified, unless the living Harry wanted it known...no need for  
his family...or him...to have to  
cope with the mess. His parents need never know they lost a son. Tom didn't  
agree. He felt very strongly  
about remembering that dead Harry...wanted him to have a memorial like the  
rest. In the end, I won out,  
and I suspect Mr. Kim has kept the secret. Of course we had to put him on both  
classified manifests, with  
my log from that time appended. Is it really so unreasonable to think that  
argument might be lingering in  
our minds?"  
  
He spread his hands, smiling wryly. "You're the logical one, Kathryn. I'm just  
the spiritualist, but...perhaps  
it isn't delusion, Harry might just want that memorial."  
  
And so she caved in. Months later, the ceremony itself was meant to be private,  
only she and Tom and  
Chakotay and B'Elanna, who, on second thought, was the one of them she  
suspected needed it the  
most...far more than even the supposed spirit of lost Mr. Kim. B'Elanna Torres  
had seen her friend's death,  
and insofar as Janeway knew, had never spoken of it to anyone, never recorded  
logs, said good-byes.   
  
Holding her child, B'Elanna Torres was the first to place a flower on the  
discreet, but elegant stones.  
Ensign Harry Kim. Infant Wildman. Chakotay spoke, another beautifully touching  
tribute. Tom made his  
uneasy eulogy, the beginnings of grief-stricken tears in his eyes. Kathryn  
Janeway remained mostly,  
shamefully unaffected. Distance. She had practiced it.  
  
And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, the still of the evening was broken, rough  
footsteps climbing through the  
rough trail. Harry Kim, wearing his new Starfleet gloss and pips, burst onto  
the scene, looking both  
relieved and utterly disconcerted.  
  
"You're late." Chakotay deadpanned, lips flicking upward.  
  
"For your own funeral, Starfleet." Torres caught on, gripping her old friend's  
arm, shoulders heaving with  
what her former captain suspected was pure laughter.  
  
Harry looked abashed. Tom managed a small, pitiful choking sound.   
  
The small, formally dressed girl who stepped from Mr. Kim's arms only sighed.  
"Captain's Assistant  
reporting, ma'am. For my own funeral."  
  
"That does it." Fighting a fog of disbelieving bemusement, Janeway glared at  
them all. "Who told them?"  
  
"Actually." Harry smiled. "I did. Or at least, some version of me. I've been having the oddest dreams lately..."  
  
"And me too." Naomi added, small hand gripping his in utter esprit de corps.  
  
"Does Samantha know you're here, young lady?"  
  
"She said if I wanted to go to my own funeral, I was welcome to, but count her  
out. But I think she lit a  
candle."  
  
"I see." Kneeling, the Admiral steered the growing child into her arms,  
watching as Naomi gently and  
calmly laid a poesy on each stone. And the children shall lead, she thought  
wryly, remembering the youth  
of that other Harry's face, contrasting it with the firm resolve of the man  
behind her. His hand reached out  
to hover just above her shoulder and she smiled, ruffling the child's hair.  
"All better, Miss Wildman?"  
  
"Much better." The child proclaimed, taking her hand.   
  
"Much better." Lieutenant Kim repeated. "No more dreams, I think."  
  
"Only good ones, Mr. Kim." His former captain straightened, fingers touching  
his face lightly. "Only good  
ones."  
  
FIN  
  
---  
AWAKENINGS (excerpt)- by Robert Desnos  
  
It's strange how you wake sometimes   
In the middle of the night, in the middle of sleep   
Someone has knocked on a door   
And in the extraordinary city of midnight of half-waking  
And half-memory heavy gates clang from street to street  
Who is this nocturnal visitor with an unknown face?  
What does he seek, what does he spy?  
Is he a poor man demanding bread and shelter?  
Is he a thief, is he a bird?  
Is he a reflection of ourselves in the mirror  
Back from a transparent abyss  
Trying to re-enter us?  
Then he realizes that we've changed.  
What does he become then?  
Where does he wander? Does he suffer?  
Is this the origin of ghosts?  
The origin of dreams?  
The birth of regrets?  
--- 


End file.
